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Court records may detail how opioid company downplayed OxyContin risks

Details about what the makers of OxyContin knew about the addictive dangers of the opioid painkiller — blamed for helping fuel the addiction crisis — may be contained in documents ordered unsealed Friday by the Kentucky Court of Appeals.

The 71-page decision by a three-judge panel, which upheld a lower court's decision, would open the documents that were part of the $24 million settlement Kentucky reached in 2015 with Purdue Pharma over its marketing of the narcotic. The state alleged the company downplayed the drug's risks.

The records include a deposition of former company president Dr. Richard Sackler, the first time he was questioned under oath, likely about what the company knew and when. He may also have answered questions about how the company marketed the drug to doctors and patients.

"I think we'll learn something about the role played by Richard Sackler in the campaign to increase opioid prescribing, a campaign that led to a public health catastrophe," said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, co-director of the Opioid Policy Research at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.

The documents won't be immediately public. They will remain sealed until the ruling is final in 30 days.

STAT, a health publication connected to the Boston Globe, filed the 2016 motion to unseal the documents, said Jon Fleischaker, an attorney representing the publication in the open records battle.

Purdue Pharma spokesman Bob Josephson said in the statement they were disappointed in the ruling. They have 30 days to appeal the decision to the Kentucky Supreme Court.

“The documents in question were never entered into evidence and did not play a role in any judicial decision. Under Kentucky law, such documents should remain private as outlined in the Protective Order with the Commonwealth of Kentucky. This decision raises important issues under Kentucky law, and we intend to pursue our rights to seek judicial review of the decision,” the company said.

In 2007, Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to misbranding OxyContin and admitted it deceptively marketed and promoted it as less addictive. That same year, the state of Kentucky and Pike County filed suit against Purdue, alleging the company misled health care providers, consumers and officials regarding the risks of addiction and led to overprescribing of the drug.

Purdue Pharma moved the case to federal court, where it lingered for several years.

The case was sent back to Pike County Circuit Court in late 2013, when the parties began seeking company documents and depositions of executives.Purdue Pharma produced more than 17 million pages of documents, many of which were deemed confidential, according to the appellate court's ruling.

STAT more than two years ago moved to unseal the documents, while Purdue Pharma "vigorously opposed" the request, the ruling said.

The documents also may provide insight into former Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway's decision to settle just before he left office at the end of 2015. Conway's office agreed to not to disclose confidential documents as part of the settlement.

Critics have asked why Conway settled the case just as he was leaving office and why he agreed to accept $24 million even though Conway and former Attorney General Greg Stumbo had said previously the case might be worth as much as $1 billion.

Conway on Friday said that “Kentucky got many times over what any state has gotten from Purdue Pharma." He pointed out that the suit against Purdue Pharma was filed by his predecessor and was several years old by the time he agreed to the settlement.

“After eight and a half years, I thought it was best to get what we could," he said. “I hope it all comes out, (that) all of the documents eventually get released, and sooner rather than later.”

The Kentucky settlement was part of a national string of lawsuits filed by states against the drug maker. Initially, 49 states settled together, with Kentucky later settling on its own.

The documents could also provide information of interest to a series cities, counties and other entities that have also filed suits against Purdue.

STAT has reported that the documents also include emails on marketing strategies, documents concerning internal analyses of clinical trials, settlement communications from an earlier criminal case regarding the marketing of OxyContin and information about how sales representatives marketed the drug.

“More than two years after we filed this suit, the scourge of opioid addiction has grown worse, and the questions have grown about Purdue’s practices in marketing OxyContin. It is vital that we all learn as much as possible about the culpability of Purdue, and the consequences of the company’s decisions on the health of Americans," Rick Berke, the executive editor of STAT, said in a statement published on its website.